Our destination for 2002 was Madeline Island in the Apostle Island chain in Lake Superior. The journey up was broken by brief weekend mobilization at April & Terry’s where we enjoyed  a Swedish smorgasbord engineered by Maxine. We also visited the Swedish Institute, and had a grand dinner at Bucca de Peppo.

After final packing and preparations were completed Monday morning, we set out for Northern Wisconsin. By mid-afternoon, we had crossed over to the island on the ferry and settled in for five days of boating, golf, sailing, walking the beach, eating, swimming, drinking, sightseeing, and, most importantly, visiting.

The weekend in Minnesota was uninterrupted rain but the weather on the island was spectacular. Temperatures were normal for the season –there was no swimming in the lake! There were some scattered reports of flies, but these could not be confirmed.

Among the highlights was the boat trip to Raspberry Island. We had a picnic on the beautifully maintained grounds and had an opportunity to see and tour one of the historic lighthouses. Again, some of the party believed they had seen flies. There was no reason to question their sincerity, but neither was there any basis on which to substantiate these claims. 

The Chautauqua show back on the mainland was both entertaining and educational. We left with a much richer understanding of the history of Bayfield and Madeline Island.

The entire crew was aboard with the exception of Will who went AWOL to Hawaii.  The pretext of a Boy Scout encampment strains credulity,  but no evidence to the contrary has been presented.